


the end of infinity with you

by AnimeDomo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 80's, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Closeted Character, Fist Fights, Football Player Shiro, M/M, Slurs, dumb teenagers, hey demons it's me ya boy, listen to your lizard brain, oc's aren't important just here to start shit, punk keith, teenagers should have their own warning label
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnimeDomo/pseuds/AnimeDomo
Summary: Unlikely best friends with an unlikely routine.["He wanted to stay here, in this darkness, in this embrace – to let the world melt away with a collapsing star. To let the whole galaxy bleed itself dry. Because nothing else it could offer would ever make Shiro feel the way he did when he held Keith to his chest, when their fingers intertwined and their breaths intermingled."][drabble//incomplete rn]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey demons it's me, ya incompetent shitty fanfic author
> 
> come scream at me on Twitter @grumpygamernisa

Takashi Shirogane wasn’t a rule breaker.

He was a model student, an athlete with universities clamoring at his doorstep for his looming graduation, an active volunteer in the community, and a friendly face on the school council.

None of this could account for why he found himself standing in the middle of someone's lawn at 1am on one of his few Fridays off, tossing stones at a dark second story window on the shabby end of town. Miles away from the friend’s house he had told his parent’s he’d be spending the night.

His heart was racing, he was antsy. It had been a stressful week.

He’d had a date tonight. Blonde, beautiful, a lead on the cheer squad at all his games. Their gravitation had been unavoidable, everyone said. A star football player and the pretty cheerleader at his elbow. She’d meant well. She was sweet. But her flouncing generosity and soft smiles hadn’t been enough to curb his boredom. Over a melting vanilla milkshake, he promised to call her. She’d giggled, kissed his cheek when he’d dropped her off home. How daring she must have thought that was, to initiate. To want.

He threw another stone, hitting his target head-on. The sound was sharp against the silence.

A light flicked on. Curtains were pulled to the side. A willowy silhouette threw the window open, leaning over the ledge to peer into the darkness. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Shiro’s heart sang; “come with me!” it called. “Save me! Tell me!” it begged.

“Come down!” Shiro hollered, as loud as he dared.

“What for?” The figure demanded. He sounded groggy. Irritable. Shiro couldn’t stop his smile.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure if you’re with me we’ll find some trouble,” Shiro laughed, his companion shook his head. Saying nothing more, the window slammed shut and, after a few minutes, the light flickered dark again.

His partner in crime emerged from the front door, all sharp shadows in the late hour as he met Shiro on the sidewalk by his parked car. Shiro stepped backwards off the edge of the curb before he could do something stupid, like reach for his friend’s hand or draw him close. Only the shoddy patches of yellowing streetlight would bear witness, something inside him argued when he caught his friend’s eyes – so blue they shone violet in the proper light. A beauty, a rarity.

“Could’ve just used the front door, dickhead. No one’s home but me.” The other boy gently elbowed Shiro to the side to open the passenger’s side door. Shiro fell into the driver’s seat as his companion was fighting with the levers beneath his own chair. He always pushed the seat as far back as it would go so he could rest his boots on the dash, long legs stretched out. 

Keith Kogane; an enigma and a vision all in one.

Shiro focused on how loud the turn of the engine was to avoid thinking about what that image he was graced with enticed him to do.

“Dad out of town again?” Shiro tried.

Keith gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “You say that as if he’s ever actually back in town. Who knows where the hell he actually is. Business trip, my ass.” Keith was trying for nonchalance, but Shiro could hear the bitter edge underneath. The thistle of a child dealt a raw hand.

Shiro decided to change the subject. “Wanna go to 7-11 and get ices? We can go to the one off the state route that you like so much.”

“Geez, ices and a trip outta town? What, you get dumped, Golden Boy?”

“I had a date today.”  
Keith groaned at that. Shiro laughed, suddenly feeling like the world was much smaller and much less harrowing. He could place his anxieties at Keith’s feet and the younger student would just grind them under his heel like a wasted cigarette butt. The world was simpler here.

“Which cheerleader was it this time.” Shiro could practically hear Keith rolling his eyes. His disdain made Shiro grin; they were one and the same.

“Kathy. Head cheerleader. She was nice.”

Keith heard the hesitation, Shiro’s ever constant need to be kind and discreet, and latched onto it. “And?” He prodded. A quick side glance told Shiro that his companion was grinning now as well, canines visible and glinting in the muted reds of the dashboard. He knew the end game.

“Boring.”

Keith barked a short laugh as Shiro turned onto the highway, seeking distant exits in towns where no one knew he was a quarterback or that his best friend made him feel like he had been jettisoned out of the atmosphere. Keith shifted next to him, crossing his ankles on the dash. Shiro hated that he couldn’t just ignore it. Keith was still smiling, but it had faded to something softer. Something understanding.

Keith knew the end game. He had known it long before Shiro.

-

Keith always got red, while Shiro struggled to choose between purple and blue. While the football player weighed the options in his head like game plays, Keith rolled his eyes and headed to the register, swiping a bag of cornnuts along the way.

Shiro found him leaning against the hood of his car in the abandoned lot after finally settling on a flavor – purple, of course, it was his favourite colour – rooting around in the snack bag. At Shiro’s approach, he extended the bag in offering.

“Plain or BQ?” Shiro met him halfway. Their fingers brushed and Shiro pretended to try reading the bag in the awkward lighting of the nearly abandoned gas station. Keith looked disgusted at his question.

“BQ.” 

“Good taste,” Shiro winked, only half mocking. Keith seemed to soften at that. Eyes seeking any other part of the empty parking lot as he fought the passenger side door open. He looked like he was trying not to smile and that fact alone made something around the football player’s heart constrict.

They both slid into the car. Neither were quite sure how to continue – Shiro, giddy; Keith, red-faced – so they opted for a gentle silence as Shiro turned the engine and headed west on the state route they had found themselves on. It didn’t take long for Keith to start fiddling with the radio, a sure sign that something was gnawing at him. He eventually settled on some new age synth piece Shiro had never heard. Keith seemed to like that electronic-style stuff so Shiro let it play without comment.

When he looked again, Keith was staring out his window with his hands folded neatly in his lap. Against his better judgment Shiro opened his mouth.

“Something bothering you?”

The reflection of Keith’s face screwed up, looking confused and unsure and maybe a tad bit scared. For a moment Shiro thought he wouldn’t answer him.

“There’s nothing… _bothering_ me.” Keith spoke slowly, carefully. He was choosing his words with care. Trying to dodge a minefield Shiro couldn’t see. Keith’s reflection remained looking as though his mind was going to overload at any moment.

Shiro pulled off into the abandoned parking lot of a factory. Judging by the vine growth and pot holes it had been abandoned for far longer than just the end of the Friday evening shift. The street lamps were dead. The only light left was the red glow from the car dashboard, the weird synthwave Keith loved so much still playing gently from the radio between them. Careful of the slushies they had left in the cupholders, Shiro angled his larger body toward Keith. 

He prodded at the leather shoulder of his best friend’s jacket, and he saw the other swallow heavily in the reflection. His violet eyes met Shiro’s dark ones in the window.

“Keith.”

The young boy sighed as though exasperated, shifting to face the football player next to him. He kept his feet up on the dash and smiled at his friend, but it was strained. Maybe in a way only Shiro would notice. An insecurity at the edges that had the world fooled. 

Keith’s eyes flickered from the fluff of Shiro’s windswept undercut to the jersey he still wore under his letterman jacket. Shiro gave him time to look, to ponder. To find whatever answers he needed. Eventually his eyes found Shiro’s again and a shadow of something passed over his face. Shiro could feel himself pressing his lips together, grinding his jaw – trying to puzzle out if this was an ending, a supernova concluding it’s collapse. He knew Keith would tire of this. He hadn’t been fair with him. He had pushed beyond his limits, he had taken so much and yet given this beautiful boy so little.

But rather than any of the apocalyptic scenarios Shiro had dreamed up – had woke up panicking about – Keith let his boots slide to the floorboards and took Shiro’s freshly shaven jaw in both hands. There was the slightest movement, a tug that was nearly nonexistent, before Keith surged up to meet Shiro’s mouth with the gentlest kiss the two had ever shared.

Shiro was hyperaware of every part where their bodies connected – the calloused hands on his face, the chapped lips that fit so well to his own that it made his heart swell and he wasn’t sure his chest could hold it any longer, the warm knee bent to press against his own thigh. His own hands reached to settle against Keith’s sides. He felt the delicate ribs under the thin cotton of his shirt, the heavy rise and fall of his lungs in the small space.

The smaller boy sighed—little, gentle, as if he hadn’t just dragged Shiro into a downward spiral with one chaste kiss. As if he didn’t hold his best friend in the palm of his hand with every movement, every look, every exhale. He didn’t move far away. Their lips still brushed when he spoke, but it took Shiro a long, fumbling moment to hear the words over the roar in his ears.

“Are you happy?”

Everything was a distraction; the thumb smoothing over his cheek, the way the dashboard lit up Keith’s eyes, the warm body in his hands. Happy? What did they need the definition of such a mundane word for, when Shiro could see forever in his best friend’s eyes and feel eternity in the touches they shared when the rest of the world couldn’t find them. He wanted to stay here, in this darkness, in this embrace – to let the world melt away with a collapsing star. To let the whole galaxy bleed itself dry. Because nothing else it could offer would ever make Shiro feel the way he did when he held Keith to his chest, when their fingers intertwined and their breaths intermingled.

“Happy?”

“Yes. Are you? Happy?”

The expression on Keith’s face made something precious inside Shiro tumble. He pressed his lips to the smaller boy’s dark brow. Tried to smooth away that worrisome crease. Tried to convey how he would sacrifice the known universe and all that was left to be discovered if it meant they could stay there forever.

“Oh, Keith,” he laughed softly, pulling him closer. Something in the other boy tensed, something unsaid that Shiro was scared to chase. So he wrapped him up tighter, held him so close that he prayed he could crush whatever shadow was dogging his best friend. Smooth out his doubts and fears as simply as he could catch a pass or fake a smile.

He was no poet; he excelled in calculus and physics and astronomy. But he could never make his desires and need for Keith sound as beautiful as the other boy made him feel. How do you give proper word to the man that you worship? So he spoke with his hands. Slid Keith into his lap and marked his neck till he gasped, the sound like gospel. Removed anything that separated them until he couldn’t fathom a beginning or an end.

Keith was gentle, hiding in a way that Shiro wasn’t accustomed to. He touches were fleeting. The same way one might handle a butterfly, fearful to tear the softness of it's wing. He didn’t bite or claw or swear – he was subdued, pressing himself to Shiro’s chest as if he couldn’t bear to part from him. Tracing his jaw, his neck, the sharp jut of his shoulders – as if committing the shadows and angles to memory. Savoring some last time that Shiro wasn’t aware of. The glassy look in Keith’s eye made his heart stop, but the soft kisses he kept pressing to the corner of his mouth revived him. The slow way Keith moved against him sent his heart spiraling. 

“Shiro,” Keith whined into his shoulder, curled in on himself as they found a rhythm that made Keith’s thighs shake. Shiro ran his hand down Keith’s back as he met him halfway. Felt the knobs of Keith’s spine and wondered why part of him felt like it was breaking. Delicate like vintage china.

Keith took Shiro’s hands, intertwined their fingers and pressed them into the headrest. He pressed their foreheads together, gazes locked, then kissed him again – slow and dirty. Shiro met him halfway. Again and again. Then pulling him forward, taking more. Pushing. Toeing a line he hadn’t drawn.

And Keith gave and gave and gave. Hand pressed to his best friend’s heart, thundering in the small space – this little world they had made for themselves – and gave whatever was left of himself.


	2. Chapter 2

The day Shiro met Keith Kogane was a fucking blood bath.

Shiro was a sophomore, finally managing to navigate the wonders of high school. Having a varsity football jersey definitely helped in that endeavor. Ultimately, Shiro learned to smile and nod and keep his head down. Do anything to keep his team members happy. To be viewed as useful.

Keith wasn’t new, and the rumors that had tainted his middle school record followed him when he began his freshman year. Openly gay, a rumored police record, and a deadbeat mother. A nearly absent father. Keith had a target on his back before he even set foot in that school. Everyone knew it. But most of everyone was fine with just whispers. Rumors. Leaving the weirdo to his own devices.

Except for the quarterback. Shiro’s cruel and fearless leader. A star about to crash and burn, who had set his sights on Keith Kogane.

Shiro had actually missed the first encounter. Matt was at his locker, prattling about some haphazard experiment his father had been setting up in the garage over the weekend. Matthew Holt was the kind of nerd that got a pass. He was deemed useful. Brilliantly successful, even if he couldn’t catch a football or make a 3-pointer. He was neutral. Safe. And Shiro was so busy questioning Matt about the chemicals his dad had been using for his solution that he missed his team captain sauntering up to the little freshman and knocking all the books out of his hands like a cheap playground bully.

He heard the tumble of textbooks, a collective gasp and a sudden pick up in the general hallway murmur. When Shiro turned his head he saw the freshman staring at the mess of books and pencils and papers strewn along the floor in front of his open locker. Loose leaf spread under the shoes of passerby. The bent edges of a science book that landed at a poor angle against the metal wall of storage space.

The captain was already walking away, exchanging low high fives with a few older boys from the team. A trio of seniors thoroughly enjoying themselves. They kicked at a notebook that had fallen to the side. Laughter rose up as it went skidding to the other side of the hall. So many onlookers, so many whispers. No one moved to help. Everyone just watched. Dozens of little high school children caught in their little high school bubbles. Scared to move.

Shiro watched the freshman reach out on hand, curl it hesitantly around the edge of his locker door. His eyes were still trained on the mess at his feet, as if the hallway had collapsed and disappeared around him. Something in Shiro curled up, withered, maybe even broke. He and Matt shared a glance. Both afraid, both hesitant – both hurting for the young boy caught up in the chaos of the prestigious high school.

His captain was nearly out of sight, back turned to him, so Shiro took a chance. Crossed the hallway and ducked down to start gathering the freshman boy’s belongings into neat piles. Notebooks in one, pens in another. He turned over a textbook, something in him reeling as he recognized it as the assigned text for an upper level physics class.

Stunned, he glanced up. The boy wasn’t looking at him, so he looked away again. 

“Are you okay?” He tried. He wasn’t sure he was heard over the din of the hallway, still frantic with the moment, so he looked up again. But this time, the boy was gone. He was stalking away. Wide steps with purpose, with ill intent. Shiro watched as this boy ran up to his team captain. Fisted his little, pale hand in the back of the letterman jacket, and pulled. Spun the taller boy around. And while he was still stunned, before he could even question him, Keith Kogane reeled back and decked him so hard that there was a spray of blood.

Shiro was sure he must have screamed with the rest of the onlookers. There was no way he could have watched Keith punch the absolute lights out of the football team captain, an asshole with a whole head of height over the freshman and nearly four years his senior and been silent. 

It was mayhem – everyone surging forward to watch as the captain stumbled back into the lockers. Swiped at his busted nose and grimacing at the blood, at the new crook in his perfect face. He lunged for Keith but the smaller boy was ready. He met him halfway, an arm to his throat, and forced him back to the lockers before taking another swing.

A few teachers stepped in, rushing to pull Keith away and blocking the two from one another. The crowd groaned as the two were separated and the fight came to a halt. Keith was being pulled away, towards the school office. His knuckles were busted, his face screwed up in a rage so pure it shook him to his core. He was digging in his heels. A fighter till the end. He never looked at Shiro once.

Shiro was rooted to the spot. His heart raced. He wondered why the textbook he was holding had begun shaking till he realized it was him. He was quivering, grasping white-knuckled at Keith Kogane’s physics book. Pressed it to his chest like a chastised schoolgirl.

“Wow,” came Matt’s voice, so close to Shiro’s side that he jumped. He forgot he wasn’t the only one in the hallway that had witnessed the holy grace that was Keith Kogane’s retaliation. But he did seem to be the only one having a revelation because of it.

 _He’s really fucking cute_ , something inside Shiro screamed. Clawed. Wailed. He felt torn to pieces by a boy who had never even spared him a glance.

-

Reading assigned passages proved impossible. The math equations his pre-calculus teacher scrawled on the board – practice from _sections_ ago – were unthinkable. Shiro sketched dark lines of erratic patterns in the margins of his notebook, tapped his pen as if he could only find focus in the rhythm. Matt kicked his chair, but Shiro could only shrug. Sigh.

Keith Kogane was still on his mind. A hurricane, a divine wind without apology. He kept replaying it; the arc of the cross he threw, the way he kept his wrist straight and swung with practiced ease. With just pure retaliation at a bullshit system. It was beautiful. Poetic.

“I need a volunteer to take the attendance sheets to the office,” Mr. Duncan called from the front of the room. He held up a thick manila envelope, eyes glazed and bored. Shiro nearly shot out of his seat.

“I’d be happy to, sir,” he smiled. The thousand-watt one that usually dazzled his father’s work friends at dinner parties. Mr. Duncan tossed him the package, blandly reminding him to take the hall pass.

Ms. Sharon was behind the front desk in the school office, all meticulously placed curls and wide cat-eye glasses. She looked so pleased to see him.

“Attendance sheets,” Shiro smiled warmly and handed them over, stepping close enough to the desk to lean down and whisper. “By the way, Miss, what’s all this I hear about a fight today?”

“Oh!” She fluttered her hand in the air, dramatic and passive as she set the envelope to the side for filing. “A freshman and one of the boys from your team – can you imagine! Ridiculous!”

Shiro was hesitant to ask, knew it was a can he didn’t want to pry open. Did the victor really write the score, he wondered? He let his curiosity win. “What were they fighting for?” He tried to look aghast, as if he hadn’t almost fallen to his knees in worship when the scrawny freshman decked his captain so hard that he fell.

Ms. Sharon looked properly put off. “He just attacked James, the mean little thing. Has quite the record. I’m not sure why anyone’s surprised, really. He should’ve been shipped out to the JDC years ago.”

Shiro wasn’t sure he hid his surprise all that well. For some reason, hearing this woman he had known since his earliest days in middle school speak so ill of a boy he only met through the rumor mill made him feel sick. He wanted to vomit right on Ms. Sharon’s perfectly polished, pink nails. “Are they still here?”

“James is with the nurse. The other one is still here. Principal Iverson is having trouble calling home.” She leaned forward then, dropped her voice to whisper as if she and Shiro were co-conspirators. “We’re not even sure he has a guardian. No one’s answered.”

“That’s… unfortunate,” Shiro trailed off. He didn’t know where to go from here. Having connections in the office proved it’s worth when he needed information or a peek at a file. But now he felt heavy, weighted down with something dark and unhappy. His high from the fight crashed and his hands twitched with a need Shiro didn’t understand. Something bitter. He thanked the secretary for confiding in him and turned to leave – and that was when he saw him.

Huddled in the last chair, closest to the Principal’s closed office door. Feet tucked under the chair and hands folded neatly in his lap. Shiro didn’t miss the red of his knuckles, peeking out from under the black cuff of his hoodie. His eyes were on Shiro; dark, narrowed. Ready for a fight. Shiro wondered what colour they were.

Iverson opened his office door, cutting the connection. Keith turned to stare as the imposing man stopped in front of him. His posture betrayed his military background. He was nearly over six feet tall and built like a brick house, one eye scarred shut from some distant battle that he would never speak of. Keith didn’t shy away. Lifted his chin. Met that one eye and blinked slow, like a dreary cat.

“We can’t reach your father. You have no work number for him?”

“I told you.”

Shiro expected Keith to spit, to bite, to bare his teeth like the feral animal he had witnessed in the hallway. But he just sounded exasperated. Tired. A bored child that had sat in a creaky office chair too many times.

Something in Shiro wanted to smooth away that crease between his dark brows. Grab his hand. Ask him where that fire had gone.

It was then that Iverson noticed Shiro and turned that stern look on the new varsity team member. It was Friday, so Shiro had his fresh new jersey on under his father’s old canvas jacket. Iverson saw the number, the black “8” against the red material, and smiled like a proud father. Reached out to clap Shiro on the shoulder with familiarity. Keith watched the exchange. Quiet and contemplative.

“Another away game tonight, huh?” Iverson laughed, warm. Shiro tried to smile. Felt the edges crumple. Tried to keep his eyes on anything other than the dark-haired boy still tucked in the corner, watching him appraisingly.

“Yes, sir,” the sophomore answered after a beat.

“Bring us home a win,” he clapped Shiro on the back one more time before disappearing into the file room behind the desk. When he left Shiro let his eyes fall on Keith. His expression reminded Shiro of a wild animal, stalking unwitting prey. He felt anxious, sick with the nerves it brought, so he thanked Ms. Sharon one more time before taking his leave. Wished her a good day. Smiled like he was expected to. Once the door shut he leaned back against the threshold. Breathed deep. He tried to hide the shame he felt as the adrenaline pulsed through him. Excitement in its purest chemical form.

Keith hadn’t taken his eyes off of him.

-

“Hey.”

The voice was soft enough that it was lost in the murmur of the halls. In the deeper drone of Matt’s voice as he planned a pizza-and-game-night for the two of them Saturday night. Shiro hadn’t known then that it would become the one voice he would recognize among the bustle of the world, the grind of the universe. The voice he’d follow to the moon and back. To Saturn. Out of the entire fucking solar system. Something in his heart knew it from that first punch but his teenage boy lizard brain had yet to catch up.

“Hey!” They tried again. This time Shiro looked up from where he was rifling around in his bookbag, deciding between what to lug home and what to abandon for the weekend.  
Keith Kogane was in front of him, in all his bloody knuckled glory. Shiro took a moment to take in the dark hoodie with “QUEEN” across the chest, the blue jeans with the heels worn to shreds from where they were too long for him, the black and white sneakers with grey tape around the width of the left one. It took Shiro too long to realize that he probably shouldn’t be staring. Matt elbowed him a second too late.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked. The concerned older brother. A kindly nerd that had been on the end of one too many cruel jokes before he found his niche. Keith turned to him, confused. That crease between his brows appeared again and something in Shiro sighed as he fought to reach out and run his thumb over that edge of skin.

“Yeah,” Keith said to Matt, still looking put off, before turning to Shiro again. “You. Why were you asking about me?”

Shiro could feel Matt’s eyes on him. Could feel the way his neck heated up with hives at the idea that this boy knew why he had been trying to track him down. Knew how he made Shiro’s knees weak when he narrowed his eyes, challenged the ones around him that held power over his head.

“I was… I was just curious about the fight. I saw it. I know James started it.” Word vomit word vomit word vomit quit talking. What makes you think this boy wants you playing hero, Shiro bit to himself. His head hurt. 

Keith eyed his red and black jersey. Curled his lip, all mean angles and bared teeth. “Fuck you. You’re one of them. I don’t want your pity. Keep the fuck away from me.”

His head hurt, but not as much as his chest. He didn’t recognize it yet, but it was the feeling of his heart shattering. Fragile under Keith’s relentless, barb-wired fists. Longing for things he couldn’t begin to know.

“Good job,” Matt deadpanned, watching the kid leave. Shiro shoved him.

-

Shiro remembered spending the next few months pining for Keith from a distance. Though sophomore Shiro would have never admitted it. He always found the freshman in a crowded cafeteria, a packed hallway, a stifling auditorium. He was pulled to this dark-haired brat like gravity, warping the space around them. Pushing them together.

At the Homecoming assembly, the freshman section was closest to the door the football team was set to enter from. Shiro peered into the overcrowded gym, laughing and shoving with his teammates. High on the energy of the entire school cheering for them. For their victory in the homecoming game against their old rivals.

Shiro looked up at the wrong moment – or perhaps the right moment – and found Keith huddled in the highest bleacher of the freshman section, as far from the undulating crowd as he could get. Swathed in a deep red jacket and dark jeans, Shiro tried to not think about how nice the colours looked on him. Red suited him, he thought. Shiro assumed there was a book hidden in the boy’s lap, his eyes steadily trained downwards even as the cheerleaders screamed and the crowd returned the enthusiasm. Somehow that endeared the little punk to Shiro all the more.

One of Shiro’s teammates made a comment about one of the cheerleaders, a pretty thing with long dark hair and green eyes – but Shiro was too busy listening to the cracking of his heart as an unfamiliar boy bounded up the bleachers and slung an arm around Keith’s shoulders. Keith glanced up, seemed to bristle and bite something out at the other boy, but he didn’t shrug him off.

He didn’t shrug him off he didn’t shrug him off why is he so close why is Keith letting him sit so close why who is he – 

Shiro’s team flooded the gym floor and the students roared. Screamed and beckoned as if gods had stepped onto the mat. Shiro supposed that to a room of hormonal teenagers that was what a football team with a golden record may seem like. Gods, patrons. Something to cheer for in their bleak day to day life. Shiro hung back with one of the shier juniors of the team, waving politely as the student council president hyped them up. The cheerleaders started a new routine, tumbling across the mat with their skirts a little too high. One caught Shiro’s eye. Winked before turning back to her teammates.

But it didn’t elicit anything from Shiro, much to his dismay. Simply fanned his annoyance. Who was this friend of Keith’s that greeted him so familiarly? That Keith let touch him? Shiro felt the back of his neck warm, but this time with something other than nerves.

When Shiro finally allowed himself to look up into the top row of the freshman bleachers again, Keith was staring straight at him, expression flat. Challenging. Not inviting, but knowing. It didn’t dig into Shiro’s delicate, confused feelings as much as it did when he realized the handsome boy was still pressed to his side – arm over Keith Kogane’s slumped shoulders as he chattered away with the rest of the school. 

-

The library was never exactly quiet. You could always hear the hiss of whispers floating over the stacks. Girls sharing secrets, teachers gossiping over coffee. It was irksome. But the high school had an amazingly large section for physics – astronomy, specifically. Shiro was sure that if he ever told his parents that his heart was with the stars they would flay him alive. How could you expect steady work in a dying industry? With the space race won, NASA – once the capable hands of NACA what felt like eons ago – was falling into obscurity according to the public eye. But what did they know of astronomical units and planets that orbited distant stars? Systems that made our milky way galaxy look like a child’s plaything. There was so much to explore, to understand. The thought of flying right out of the atmosphere made his heart soar.

Keith Kogane was sprawled across one of the chairs in the study area closest to the section Shiro was searching for. He was engrossed in the heavy tome he was holding and didn’t notice Shiro. But damn did Shiro notice Keith. As if every atom in his body sang for this dumb teenager, this petulant child, he recognized the mop of dark hair before he even saw Keith’s face.

He meant to simply walk past and leave the boy to his own devices, he swore he did. But his eye caught the scrawl on the golden cover in Kogane’s hands and Shiro felt like he was caught in a fever dream.

“Voyager 1?” Once again, Shiro’s teenage brain failed to catch up. Keith’s head whipped up when Shiro spoke, startling like a kitten. His legs hung over one arm of the chair. Curled up endearingly. Completely immersed. He scowled when Shiro broke whatever fantastical world Keith had escaped to. He didn’t seem to have any plans of answering, so Shiro trudged on.

“You like astronomy?”

“It’s interesting,” Keith conceded.

“I found a whole book just on how NASA planned Voyager 2’s trajectory to utilize a planetary gravitational assist and try to enter interstellar space. It had the equations and everything.”

Keith’s feet slid to the floor and he sat up, back straight and eyes bright. Shiro didn’t have time to ponder their stranger colour because Keith was shining as if Shiro had just handed him the key to eternity. It was nearly blinding.

“Did you see the images of Jupiter they released?”

Shiro sank into the seat next to Keith, bag forgotten on the floor by his feet. “They’re insane. You can see the Big Red Spot perfectly. Imagine the pressure inside that storm!”  
“The storm’s been visible since people began using TELESCOPES. Did you hear the reports about the active volcanoes on Io?”

“Of course! It’s the first we’ve ever found on another body in the solar system! That discovery was monumental! Matt didn’t shut up about it for weeks.”

Keith leaned forward. He was smiling. The sight nearly stopped Shiro’s heart and he tried to focus on anything else. The black and white images of worlds unexplored that he and Matt had poured over for months, the musty smell of the library, the odd looks Ms. Morris was giving the two boys from behind the checkout counter. Anything to keep his mind off the fact that he wanted to tell Keith how beautiful that grin looked on him. Wanted to know what it tasted like, a look so golden and pure.

“They think that most of the primary source material in the Jovian magnetosphere is from Io. They say that the activity on Io might be affecting the whole fucking system. They traced high-energy particles from an eruption at the magnetosphere’s outer edge.”

Keith laid one palm flat on the table’s surface, officially sidling into Shiro’s space as he shot off about the news reports NASA had released about the flyby’s, the stark images that had been so meticulously taken and splashed across any news outlet that would take them. What it could mean for Voyager 1 and 2 to make it to the heliosheath – or, dare they say it, interstellar space. The sheer information they could gather from the imaging alone.

Shiro fucking swooned.

-

“All I’m saying, is it’s not my fault you suck at Galaga.”

Shiro pointed an accusing finger at his shorter companion. “And all I’m saying, is you cheated.”

Keith threw both hands up, exasperated. “I didn’t mean to elbow you, I got shoved!”

“Likely story.”

Shiro returned to rooting around in his locker for his lucky purple pen – he had a math test today – and Keith crossed his arms, pressing his back to the lockers to pout. “No trust.”

“Trust has nothing to do with the fact that you’re buying the pizza this Saturday, because if you hadn’t cheated I would have beat your score.” Shiro grinned and Keith simply groaned, rolling his eyes. There was a twinge in Shiro’s chest at the sight of Keith, opening up little by little. A shared interest in astronomy expanded into a shared interest in arcade games and pizza and meeting up with the Holt’s on the weekend to make things explode. For science.

Fond. He was fond of Keith Kogane. He was willing to admit it to himself at that point. It was November and Keith had become as valuable to him as a limb. His laughter left him stunned, rare and musical. His blunt attitude was something to be admired. And he was fucking brilliant. He tore through math equations and high-level chemistry like they were elementary scribble. He could quote Bauldaire and Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He approached life with a desire for understanding and acceptance – perhaps because that was something life hadn’t afforded him.

He wanted to protect this boy. This fast-made friend that left him wondering how it felt to hold someone’s hand or kiss the laughter off their lips. This boy that inspired him every moment he graced him with his attention.

“You coming to Matt’s tonight? His sister stole a ham radio, apparently.”

Keith laughed. The sound almost made Shiro sigh with longing. “Why?”

“Shit if I know. It’s Kaite.”

Keith pushed off the lockers, falling into step next to Shiro as they headed down the hall. There were still whispers, cruel words passed around. Rumors about what Keith really got up to. Shiro found it easy to pass by it all when it was Keith he was brushing shoulders with, laughing with.

“Of course I’ll be there.”

“Cool. Meet me after practice? We can walk to the Holt’s together.”

Keith hesitated. He looked far away. His steps slowed and something in Shiro ached. But then he smiled, nodded at Shiro, and passed the older boy’s stride. “Sure. Gotta go. Spanish.”

Shiro stopped, giving Keith an incredulous look. “You’re taking Spanish?”

Keith responded with his middle finger, smile absolutely blinding.

-

Practice was brutal when Shiro’s mind was on Keith Keith Keith – getting to see Keith after practice, walking through the suburb to his other best friend’s house. To spend another Friday night on Matt’s floor next to Keith, whispering under the glow in the dark stars Matt had tacked to the ceiling in middle school. Shiro was willing to admit that he might have a problem.

An upperclassman approached as Shiro was tugging off his helmet. The taller boy kindly patted something off Shiro’s shoulders. “You’ve been spacey lately, Shirogane.”

“Sorry, just – a lot going on. I’ll pay more attention.”

“Don’t overwork yourself. You’re just a sophomore. And hey, if you need any help in pre-calculus just let me know!”

A passing senior snorted, “You’re the last person anyone should be asking help for in math.”

The two bickered, squawking back and forth, and Shiro let himself relax into the atmosphere as the group began moving towards the changing room – till one of the seniors spoke up.

“Isn’t that Kogane?”

Against the corner of the squat brick building that they used as locker rooms Shiro spied Keith around the shoulders of a few teammates. He was sitting against the fence that met the building, a book in his hands. That adorable look of concentration brought a smile to Shiro’s face that he couldn’t fight off.

“That queer that jumped you at the beginning of the year?”

The quarterback at the head of the group didn’t answer, stalking off in Keith’s direction like an omen. Most of the team shrugged, heading inside, wiping sweat off their brow. A few lingered. Waiting to see what would happen. Shiro felt his blood run cold, his sweat freeze to his skin, as he followed his team captain across the neatly cut lawn to where his friend sat unsuspecting.

James made it to him before Shiro, saw Keith lift his head and scowl at whatever the quarterback had said. But he didn’t stand. Shiro’s mouth felt dry. Tongue heavy and useless as he saw James kick at Keith’s taped sneaker, goading him. 

Keith’s eyes flickered to Shiro where he stood, hovering just behind the captain, helmet caught between his unsure hands. Those eyes that made his heart race. That reassured him before every test, every game. Challenged him. Was now pleading with him. Was focused on Shiro only.

James said something else, but Shiro didn’t quite catch it over the rush of blood in his ears. The heat of anxiety crawling up his spine. He had to remind himself to breath. Keith returned to glaring at the quarterback now, biting his lip against some retort. His chest fell with heavy breaths. Anger. Keith was trying to reel it in, trying to let it pass. Trying to be the bigger person. Losing an internal battle.

The quarterback kicked at him again, harder – and this time Shiro didn’t miss his words. “Did you hear me, faggot?”

Whatever force had allowed Keith to grind his jaw and look away for this long dissipated at the slur, and the smaller boy hauled himself to his feet in one smooth movement. His book was left in the grass by his boots, forgotten as he lifted his fists and braced himself.

The quarterback made a grab for him, wrapping his fingers in the collar of Keith’s shirt and shoving him backwards. Shiro wasn’t sure when, but he was suddenly lunging forward – one hand on his captain’s jersey and the other in his crop of dark hair, hauling the older boy backwards and off of Keith. He shoved him away, teeth bared, but his captain was taller and quicker and stronger. He turned and decked Shiro so hard he fell flat on his ass.

Shiro was up so fast Keith had no time to move, to help him. Shiro felt sick. Like he could tear his captain into fleshy pieces and it still wouldn’t be enough. It could never be enough to compensate for the wary look in Keith’s eye, the tired fear he lived with. He felt so hot under his practice uniform he could scream.

He threw himself on the quarterback, the two tumbling into the grass with Shiro landing on top. He threw one punch, two – before the captain wrestled him off. His nose was bloody. He looked enraged, making another dash for Shiro before one of the lingering team members grabbed him. Pleaded with him to back off. What if coach sees?  
And that was all they cared about. Shiro wasn’t sure that he didn’t scream at that.

But Keith was at his elbow – kind, brilliant Keith with stars in his eyes. Pulling him by his soiled jersey off the field. Begging him without words. Did he know that Shiro would follow him to the ends of this earth? To all the planets the teams at NASA could discover?

They didn’t speak. Keith quietly navigating them to his own house. A shoddy, run-down little thing with two stories. The windows were dark, no cars in the crumbling driveway overrun with little green growth. Keith’s house was closer to the high school, but he had always insisted that the spend their evenings at Shiro’s or Matt’s or the arcade. The rotting front door, the creaking floorboards as Keith fought to find a light – it all made Shiro’s heart hurt a little more.

But here Keith was, tending to him. Pushing him back into a chair and digging a box of tissues out of a cupboard. He tore a handful out of the box and pressed them to Shiro’s nose, red bleeding into the white cloth. He hadn’t even realized he was bleeding. The pressure on his nose brought to attention just how hard the captain had socked him and he flinched at the painful twinge.

“Sorry,” Keith muttered, soft. Careful. He withdrew the tissues for a moment to inspect the damage. He frowned at whatever he saw. The light caught his eyes just right as he leaned in, and Shiro fought to keep his hands in his lap.

They’re violet, he decided dreamily.

“Your parents are gonna kill you,” Keith chided, gathering fresh tissues. He seemed to stoop even closer this time, so close Shiro thought he could feel Keith’s breath across his busted nose. He ran his tongue over his lip – an old nervous twitch – and winced when he caught another tear in his skin. More salt and iron. Another secret to keep. Keith watched the movement, eyes lingering. He pulled them away a moment later. Both boys colouring with embarrassment. The moment was fragile.

“You should’ve let me handle it.” Keith told him. He sounded exasperated. But there was a smile gracing his face. Something akin to childish wonderment. Starry-eyed at whatever he had seen when Shiro got his ass kicked by his team captain. It made Shiro feel a little prideful, a little bold. He breathed deeply, taking in the must of the old house and the warm spice of Keith’s cologne. 

Keith’s expression crumpled into almost hysterical laughter. But there was an edge to it, something painful. Worry. Hurt. Shiro thought he saw tears gather in his friend’s eyes, but he kept forcing that damn smile. That fake laugh. His cheeks were ruddy. He sounded panicked, a downward spiral. A panic attack. Shiro wanted to pull him into his lap. Keith cradled his jaw with one hand instead, his glassy eyes boring into Shiro’s.

“What were you thinking?” He whispered. His voice broke a little, as if he was afraid to speak too loudly, too boldly. As if the quiet of this dilapidated building was holy.  
Shiro brought one hand up to cover Keith’s, slotting their fingers together. Pulling it away from his jaw. Keith watched him move their hands, expression mournful, until Shiro settled his free hand on Keith’s jaw – sliding his long fingers into his unruly dark hair and pulling him forward the last few inches of space.

Their lips met but it was rough – a panicked edge, the knowledge that they would never have enough time in this life. Shiro’s lip was still bleeding, smearing red all over Keith’s mouth but he kept returning, kept stealing the air from Shiro’s lungs, never moving too far away. It tasted like iron. Like the anger and unstoppable drive he admired so deeply. That unbreakable spirit Keith carried with him like a weapon. 

Keith met him halfway for every movement; hands intertwining, carving out a path along one another’s face as if they had waited eons for one another. Keith sighed into Shiro’s bloody mouth as if this was all he ever wanted.

Shiro moved away, mere centimeters that felt like lightyears when the boy he was falling in love with was so warm in his hands. “You don’t have to handle everything on your own,” he told him, thumb against his temple. Keith’s hand against his chest above his heart. Both boys lost in one another.

Keith laughed, lips red and cheeks glowing, and Shiro thought it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. “Do you ever take your own advice, Takashi?”

-

Shiro let his eyes flutter open, finding the sun beginning to rise outside of Keith’s window. The first deep orange and golden rays were bleeding into the grey morning. It was calm. Warm. Keith’s back was pressed to Shiro’s chest, the football player’s arms curled around the boy he had fallen in love with years ago.

Keith’s hair was in disarray, dark locks splayed over the pillow. Thin chest rising and falling with sleep. One hand resting in Shiro’s, the other curled to his chest. 

Shiro rolled over onto his back, stretching just enough to pop his back. Rubbing at his eyes, the now-quarterback spotted the flimsy brochure they had been pouring over the night before, resting crookedly on the nightstand. A nearby college. Moderate tuition. Close to home. A widely renowned business program with multiple bachelor’s degrees in the field. A brochure his parents had enthusiastically shoveled into his hands straight from the mail. It checked every box on their list.

Shiro shoved it in the little trash can Keith kept by his bedside, hiding it under old tissues and crumpled homework papers. Maybe if he couldn’t see it anymore it wouldn’t haunt him like an attention-demanding ghoul.

Content, Shiro shifted back onto his side. Keith had started to stir at all the movement. Shiro curled around him, tucking his knees in, and nuzzled into the back of his best friend’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Keith slurred, sleep-heavy and drowsy.

Shiro sighed against his unruly hair, humming. Placed a kiss under Keith’s ear and tugged the blanket up higher. “Nothing,” he yawned.

The sun wasn’t up quite yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tap into your inner lizard brain.
> 
> it's 3am.


End file.
